It is hard for me to say I ‘gave birth’ to him when I, well, didn’t in the ‘natural’ sense.

I fall apart inside whenever women go on about their perfect pregnancy and perfect natural birth (‘drugs free’, they always have to emphasise). No one seems to hear about stressful pregnancy and imperfect being cut opened birth.

When I have a moment to myself, these thoughts come to my head, recalling all that went on with the birth of my baby.

None of it was perfect. I felt I had to fight all the way through. In the end I was forced to be induced and that led to an emergency C-section, followed by a traumatic postnatal experience.

I feel I’ve failed him by not being able to give birth to him ‘naturally’.

I feel I’ve failed him when they took him away to the nursery and kept him away from me. I am still angry I wasn’t strong enough to say no and that he should stay with me at all times.

I feel I’ve failed him by not being able to breastfeed him all the time for at least a year. Our times have to be juggled with me expressing milk whenever and however much I can. It is stressful. Stressful as I worry I can’t express enough to meet his feeding demands. It also takes a lot of time as rather than feeding him directly, I am expressing into bottles then feeding him. I feel like I am constantly trying to beat the clock.

Sometimes he screams and I don’t know what was wrong and what I could do to help him. He’s still waking up through the night and screams. This frightens me. Doctor Google is a bad doctor. A google search shows up search results that made me feel worse and fearful.

I just hold him close and tell him everything is alright. Sometimes I just sob coz I just don’t know what to do.